Especially, don't tell them that every time you touch a surface in a store with your fingers, you leave behind a biological marker that is unique and can be traced back to you.
This also happens when you masturbate into the store's drinking fountains. It's a privacy nightmare.
Because pressing your luck on yellow is the only rational choice?
Assuming that everyone will always try to game the yellow lights is at least as false an assumption as the one you're replying to.
Even for aggressive drivers, a longer yellow is a longer warning. A longer warning to speed up and rocket through an intersection should help reduce accidents for the same reason a longer warning to stop will: more warning allows more time to decide and react before it's too late.
I would assume that the licensing fees for MPEG are a part of the Windows and Mac OS X price tag.
Is there someone who wouldn't assume that? What would it be like if someone found out the answer and posted it?
Meanwhile, this uncertain assumption that some unknown cost paid by some unknown entity and then included as an unknown component cost in some unknown products is hardly a call to arms .
Yeah, it has never actually been necessary to turn off the ignition. But my engine has killed while moving before. Steering and brakes still function, not as well, but good enough for a safe stop.
Software failed to fix my spelling of "brakes"! Someone call David Cummings!
I'm in the market for a car and everyone is picking on Toyota now.
I don't believe in stupid media hype. I don't believe cars rewire themselves. And I know how to hit the breaks, shift into neutral, and/or turn off the key when I want the car to go slower (so far, hitting the breaks has always proven adequate).
Are there any really good deals on Toyotas available?
Thanks. You are the personification of the attitude I described in my post. Your knowledge and your willingness to use it to deny us all the opportunity to make incorrect choices make you a hero to a benighted world.
Truly you are: The Bland Avenger.
If you buy food with salt in, you can't take it out - if you buy food with no salt, you can easily add some; where do you have the most choice?
At the store, when you're deciding what to buy. Or at the door to the restaurant, when you're deciding to enter.
Logic (and pragmatism, and practicality, and "common sense") don't value anything.
Let me pick another example. Let's say I have someone causing me a lot of trouble. What do I do about it? Hmm... Perhaps I should murder that person? Why not? They'll be dead. Logically, murdering that person solved my problem. And I figured out and easy, fool-proof way to get away with it. So it's practical and I can easily do it. Common sense says I should solve my problem this way, since it's the easiest way.
But murder is wrong. That's an ideology, a value. So I won't do it.
Logic (and pragmatism and practicality and common sense) are ways to choose between actions that are already ideologically acceptable and consistent with a set of values. They are a poor substitute for having values yourself, and (as the murder victim might have noticed) a very poor substitute for the people around you having values.
I think the government forcing people to do things (or not do things) against their will is wrong and should be minimized. Since force is most of what government does, government should be small and inactive. That's a position consistent with a values system.
A more logical position would be to have the government steal from you for my benefit. This is, unfortunately, a position held by a vast number of people.
If the government could also enslave you or kill you for an even greater benefit to me, then logically, why not do that? Because it's wrong. Harming people for your benefit is wrong. Stealing from people is wrong. Hiring a government to do it for you is wrong.
Yeah! These people are too dumb to make all our choices for us. We should elect smart people to make all our choices for us.
Or, how about we make all our own choices and take all the power away from government? Then it doesn't matter whether the government people are smart or not.
Issues need to be dealt with logically, not ideologically.
I have to disagree there. It's pretty easy to make "logical" arguments in favor of anything -- from banning salt on up through genocide.
Meanwhile, opposition to genocide (again, used simply as an example) is an ideological position. It's not something where you weigh the pros and cons and go pro-genocide when it fits a particular situation.
Government is used to force people to do things against their will. Therefore, governments should do very little, especially when the people involved are innocently going about their lives.
It's because they know how you should lead your life. They know. And you're doing it wrong. Therefore, you need their help making choices. They're banning things to help you.
You should thank them. They are heroically protecting you by banning you from making incorrect choices. Why aren't you thanking them?
It's a privacy question. Ask the supreme court. Abortion is private and you have a 4th Amendment right to privacy. (Read it. It's in there. Supreme court says so. Just keep reading it until you agree that it says privacy. You wouldn't question the legitimacy of the supreme court, would you?)
Every single other aspect of your health care is fair game. And everything else about your life too. It's all subject to government second-guessing your choices.
... (good ideas, on the other hand, get shelved and are never heard from again).
There are no good "ideas" in government. The ones that seem good only seem that way because they're never enacted and you never get to see them corrupted.
The only idea worth talking about is for government to stop doing almost everything it does.
Everyone: mind your own business and stop trying to take your neighbor's money and control you neighbor's life. If you think something needs doing, do it yourself. If you think something needs to be paid for, pay for it yourself. If you think someone needs help, help them yourself. If you know "the right way" to live, live your life that way. Leave the rest of us to live our lives our own way.
Too bad teachers refuse to have their output measured that way. The union opposes any measurement of learning to rate teachers. So the number of children is the only number we have.
If a teacher has more children to teach, I'd invite that teacher to work extra hours to teach them at 100% effectiveness. And get paid extra for the extra output. Or, if the teacher is good enough, she could teach more students in the same amount of time and still get increased pay. But the union won't allow any of this. Productivity and accountability are too much to ask from teachers.
I should thank them for "putting up" with me? I'm the taxpayer.
They are welcome to go take another job that doesn't require taking money from innocent people like me against my will. In fact, I'd encourage it. Please go away and take a more honest job.
If all of them would do that, we could have schools that respond to the parents, because the parents would be paying the bills.
Not really, no. Why should anyone pretend to respect people who haven't earned it? Because they occupy a position associated with authority?
Teachers have authority over children. I'm all grown up. As a taxpayer, those teachers owe me at least as much respect as I owe them. Do teachers respect taxpayers? If they do, they certainly don't make it obvious.
If teachers want smaller class sizes, they should be willing to accept proportionally smaller paychecks. That's what happens when your productivity drops.
Teachers love to blame problems on [parents|students|other scapegoat] because that way, no additional work or money is required by the complainer to solve the problem.
We need to stop letting them get away with that excuse. If there's truly nothing the teacher can do, then that teacher's pay can be cut, or that teacher can be laid off. The job still won't get done, but the money from the failing teacher's salary can be used for something productive.
You seem to misunderstand that many kids don't like to work and learn, a common mistake for someone who has not taught.
For "kids", the parent is your primary customer.
The kids are your secondary customers. If they don't like to work and learn, then you're not satisfying your customers, are you? If you can't succeed in helping them like it, and if you can't succeed in educating them otherwise, then you're not much good to them, are you?
So why should anyone continue to pay you to fail? It seems like we could achieve the same result for these particular kids without the salary expense.
No offense, but more often than not, it is the home environment that determines whether a child will succeed or not when they reach school.
This is the all-purpose excuse we always hear.
Given this, the obvious solution would be to cut funding to the schools and leave the money at home with the parents, where it might be able to influence the child's success.
We need to try treating teachers as valued members of society...
Do they have to earn this respect? What do they have to give up for it? Do we still have to listen to the all-purpose excuses they offer (family issues, poverty, culture, lawsuits, etc.) when they fail? Do we get to fire the teachers unworthy of this respect?
Or are we just supposed to pretend to respect them, like we're acting out a role in a play that everyone knows is fictional and unrealistic?
Slashdot Mirror
Careful what you say. You'll get modded a troll.
Especially, don't tell them that every time you touch a surface in a store with your fingers, you leave behind a biological marker that is unique and can be traced back to you.
This also happens when you masturbate into the store's drinking fountains. It's a privacy nightmare.
Because pressing your luck on yellow is the only rational choice?
Assuming that everyone will always try to game the yellow lights is at least as false an assumption as the one you're replying to.
Even for aggressive drivers, a longer yellow is a longer warning. A longer warning to speed up and rocket through an intersection should help reduce accidents for the same reason a longer warning to stop will: more warning allows more time to decide and react before it's too late.
I would assume that the licensing fees for MPEG are a part of the Windows and Mac OS X price tag.
Is there someone who wouldn't assume that? What would it be like if someone found out the answer and posted it?
Meanwhile, this uncertain assumption that some unknown cost paid by some unknown entity and then included as an unknown component cost in some unknown products is hardly a call to arms .
I'll buy one of these "defective" cars from you. Just give me a 50% discount because of the "defects".
Yeah, it has never actually been necessary to turn off the ignition. But my engine has killed while moving before. Steering and brakes still function, not as well, but good enough for a safe stop.
Software failed to fix my spelling of "brakes"! Someone call David Cummings!
I'm in the market for a car and everyone is picking on Toyota now.
I don't believe in stupid media hype. I don't believe cars rewire themselves. And I know how to hit the breaks, shift into neutral, and/or turn off the key when I want the car to go slower (so far, hitting the breaks has always proven adequate).
Are there any really good deals on Toyotas available?
Thanks. You are the personification of the attitude I described in my post. Your knowledge and your willingness to use it to deny us all the opportunity to make incorrect choices make you a hero to a benighted world.
Truly you are: The Bland Avenger.
If you buy food with salt in, you can't take it out - if you buy food with no salt, you can easily add some; where do you have the most choice?
At the store, when you're deciding what to buy. Or at the door to the restaurant, when you're deciding to enter.
Logic (and pragmatism, and practicality, and "common sense") don't value anything.
Let me pick another example. Let's say I have someone causing me a lot of trouble. What do I do about it? Hmm... Perhaps I should murder that person? Why not? They'll be dead. Logically, murdering that person solved my problem. And I figured out and easy, fool-proof way to get away with it. So it's practical and I can easily do it. Common sense says I should solve my problem this way, since it's the easiest way.
But murder is wrong. That's an ideology, a value. So I won't do it.
Logic (and pragmatism and practicality and common sense) are ways to choose between actions that are already ideologically acceptable and consistent with a set of values. They are a poor substitute for having values yourself, and (as the murder victim might have noticed) a very poor substitute for the people around you having values.
I think the government forcing people to do things (or not do things) against their will is wrong and should be minimized. Since force is most of what government does, government should be small and inactive. That's a position consistent with a values system.
A more logical position would be to have the government steal from you for my benefit. This is, unfortunately, a position held by a vast number of people.
If the government could also enslave you or kill you for an even greater benefit to me, then logically, why not do that? Because it's wrong. Harming people for your benefit is wrong. Stealing from people is wrong. Hiring a government to do it for you is wrong.
Yeah! These people are too dumb to make all our choices for us. We should elect smart people to make all our choices for us.
Or, how about we make all our own choices and take all the power away from government? Then it doesn't matter whether the government people are smart or not.
Issues need to be dealt with logically, not ideologically.
I have to disagree there. It's pretty easy to make "logical" arguments in favor of anything -- from banning salt on up through genocide.
Meanwhile, opposition to genocide (again, used simply as an example) is an ideological position. It's not something where you weigh the pros and cons and go pro-genocide when it fits a particular situation.
Government is used to force people to do things against their will. Therefore, governments should do very little, especially when the people involved are innocently going about their lives.
It's because they know how you should lead your life. They know. And you're doing it wrong. Therefore, you need their help making choices. They're banning things to help you.
You should thank them. They are heroically protecting you by banning you from making incorrect choices. Why aren't you thanking them?
It's a privacy question. Ask the supreme court. Abortion is private and you have a 4th Amendment right to privacy. (Read it. It's in there. Supreme court says so. Just keep reading it until you agree that it says privacy. You wouldn't question the legitimacy of the supreme court, would you?)
Every single other aspect of your health care is fair game. And everything else about your life too. It's all subject to government second-guessing your choices.
But abortion is private.
... (good ideas, on the other hand, get shelved and are never heard from again).
There are no good "ideas" in government. The ones that seem good only seem that way because they're never enacted and you never get to see them corrupted.
The only idea worth talking about is for government to stop doing almost everything it does.
Everyone: mind your own business and stop trying to take your neighbor's money and control you neighbor's life. If you think something needs doing, do it yourself. If you think something needs to be paid for, pay for it yourself. If you think someone needs help, help them yourself. If you know "the right way" to live, live your life that way. Leave the rest of us to live our lives our own way.
Too bad teachers refuse to have their output measured that way. The union opposes any measurement of learning to rate teachers. So the number of children is the only number we have.
If a teacher has more children to teach, I'd invite that teacher to work extra hours to teach them at 100% effectiveness. And get paid extra for the extra output. Or, if the teacher is good enough, she could teach more students in the same amount of time and still get increased pay. But the union won't allow any of this. Productivity and accountability are too much to ask from teachers.
You know what else doesn't scale and is hard to debug and maintain? Almost everything.
There's no magic answer. "Increase the budget by 4X to implement an elegant, scalable solution" isn't a magic answer either.
I should thank them for "putting up" with me? I'm the taxpayer.
They are welcome to go take another job that doesn't require taking money from innocent people like me against my will. In fact, I'd encourage it. Please go away and take a more honest job.
If all of them would do that, we could have schools that respond to the parents, because the parents would be paying the bills.
Not really, no. Why should anyone pretend to respect people who haven't earned it? Because they occupy a position associated with authority?
Teachers have authority over children. I'm all grown up. As a taxpayer, those teachers owe me at least as much respect as I owe them. Do teachers respect taxpayers? If they do, they certainly don't make it obvious.
Authority tends to be assumed by those who deserve it the least. Then that authority is used as a substitute for merit or leadership.
If teachers want smaller class sizes, they should be willing to accept proportionally smaller paychecks. That's what happens when your productivity drops.
Teachers love to blame problems on [parents|students|other scapegoat] because that way, no additional work or money is required by the complainer to solve the problem.
We need to stop letting them get away with that excuse. If there's truly nothing the teacher can do, then that teacher's pay can be cut, or that teacher can be laid off. The job still won't get done, but the money from the failing teacher's salary can be used for something productive.
You seem to misunderstand that many kids don't like to work and learn, a common mistake for someone who has not taught.
For "kids", the parent is your primary customer.
The kids are your secondary customers. If they don't like to work and learn, then you're not satisfying your customers, are you? If you can't succeed in helping them like it, and if you can't succeed in educating them otherwise, then you're not much good to them, are you?
So why should anyone continue to pay you to fail? It seems like we could achieve the same result for these particular kids without the salary expense.
You seem to have artificial and arbitrary barriers confused with "high standards".
Do you think the lottery has a "high standard" for lottery winners? Then why aren't there more winners?
No offense, but more often than not, it is the home environment that determines whether a child will succeed or not when they reach school.
This is the all-purpose excuse we always hear.
Given this, the obvious solution would be to cut funding to the schools and leave the money at home with the parents, where it might be able to influence the child's success.
You seem to misunderstand who the customer is. This is a common mistake in education.
We need to try treating teachers as valued members of society...
Do they have to earn this respect? What do they have to give up for it? Do we still have to listen to the all-purpose excuses they offer (family issues, poverty, culture, lawsuits, etc.) when they fail? Do we get to fire the teachers unworthy of this respect?
Or are we just supposed to pretend to respect them, like we're acting out a role in a play that everyone knows is fictional and unrealistic?